#TechThursday here with an awesome, brand new internet slang phrase from a Chinese colleague✨
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Has it ever happened to you that sometimes, you enjoy a product or service so much – you keep recommending it to friends?
And when you do that, in Chinese you 种草 zhòng cǎo 🌱
❣️ This phrase isn’t even in dictionaries yet – so native English speakers, and speakers of other languages – share your translation in comments!
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种 zhòng – to plant
草 cǎo – grass
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种草 zhòng cǎo – to recommend the things you like to your friends
❗️Literally, “to plant grass” (in other people’s hearts/minds)
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Or, using modern social media language, 种草-ing is pretty much like turning into a brand evangelist. Someone who truly loves and supports a product, like hardcore Apple fans🍏
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It gets even more interesting when you try to put it into a sentence. You yourself can:
🗣给 gěi [friends] 种草 zhòngcǎo
But it can also work in passive voice:
🎞 昨天被同事种草了一部电影
Zuótiān bèi tóngshì zhòngcǎo le yíbù diànyǐng
Yesterday a colleague recommended me a movie…
👗 被朋友种草了这条裙子…
Bèi péngyou zhòngcǎo le zhè tiáo qúnzi…
A friend shared/recommended this dress…
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And yes, it has a lot to do with clothes and other stuff you can buy online. You can argue that this phrase is a product of consumerist culture – but hey, this is modern China😅
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How would you translate 种草 into your language?
And what things have your friends recently 种草-d to you?
@roja.muhammad: 谢谢我没听过这句话
@yourmandarin: @roja.muhammad 不客气！🌱
@roja.muhammad: 昨天被老师种草了看这本书，他很喜欢
@yourmandarin: @roja.muhammad 很好😄👍
@bemonet: Something similar, but regional slang is “put me on”. If a friend reccomends you something and you like it and now interested in it, you can say she “put me on”.
@yourmandarin: @bemonet That’s cool! Love it!
@instadashu: 请翻译：割韭菜
@yourmandarin: @instadashu 请问在什么意境下用的？游戏？股市？比特币？
@xinde.general.store: It doesn’t sound natural to me to add an object to 种草 since 草 is the object itself, like we don’t say 我吃饭了一个苹果. Likewise, I’d say 你们最近被种了什么草?
@yourmandarin: @xinde.general.store 👍 Yeah? Well I’m happy to start this conversation coz I had to take all these examples from 百度百科/种草, for lack of other sources! And there they seem to use 种草 as a solid transitive verb… But I like how it sounds, “What kind of grass has been grown on you recently”😂
@xinde.general.store: @yourmandarin I don’t trust 百度百科 tbh😅 Check out how your colleagues use this word.
@yourmandarin: @xinde.general.storeHahaha they’ve been in a meeting all morning, now went for lunch, I can’t wait to ask!!
@yourmandarin: @xinde.general.storeThough I keep finding examples online of people adding objects after it: 被种草了一本书… 被种草了一个包… even 被种草了一口锅😂😂
@yourmandarin: @xinde.general.store Confirmed by multiple colleagues: they say they add subjects after 种草🤷🏻♀️
@xinde.general.store: @yourmandarin Ok, then that’s all right😁
@yourmandarin: @xinde.general.store Chinese language keeps fascinating me… It’s like rules get broken every day!
@yourmandarin: @xinde.general.store Evolution on steroids🚀
@xinde.general.store: @yourmandarin It’s not grammatically correct to add objects to 种草. Personally I won’t speak in that way. Easy to challenge.
@yentiyulitatjen: 种草就是推荐吗？
@yourmandarin: @yentiyulitatjen 嗯，是“把东西推荐给另一个人”、而且”让另一个人喜欢这个东西”的意思
@yentiyulitatjen: @yourmandarin 谢谢您的解释
@yourmandarin: @yentiyulitatjen 不用谢☀️
@yentiyulitatjen: @yourmandarin 你能不能种草给我一个好玩儿的地方吗？可不可以这么说吗？
